So far, DC plans have largely been focused on the onset of auto-enrolment and changes to the regulatory framework - be it the ‘charge cap,' ‘pension freedoms' or consultations around ‘value for money', says Annabel Tonry, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM).

In 2015 George Osborne, then the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, decided that those age over 55 could take much more of their pension in cash. This has since opened up a range of possibilities for DC scheme members in the world of pensions.

Petroleum Fund develops corporate governance capacity

NORWAY - Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) has announced it is developing capacity and expertise to safeguard the ownership role of the Government Petroleum Fund and the Bank's foreign exchange reserves.

A special group is being established in equity management that reinforces the already existing functions relating to the exercise of ownership rights.

Henrik Syse has been appointed to head the group. In addition to Mr. Syse and the current staff, three new employees have been appointed and two experts will provide affiliate services.

NBIM’s work on exercising its voting rights has been substantially increased since the work began in 2003. It will now be possible to vote at the general meetings of the vast majority of the 3 200 companies in the portfolios.

At the same time, the Bank has taken over the exercise of voting rights from all external portfolio managers.

In the latter half of 2004, the Ministry of Finance laid down new guidelines for Norges Bank’s exercise of ownership rights. The exercise of ownership rights is one of the instruments associated with the introduction of ethical criteria in the Bank’s investment management.

The overriding objective shall be to safeguard the Petroleum Fund’s financial interests, and particular emphasis will be placed on the Fund’s strategy of maintaining a long-term and highly diversified investment fund.

“We think we can achieve a higher return in the future by now systematically determining the requirements that should apply to corporate boards and management, and which can gain the support of other owners.

“Common to many such requirements are attitudes to corporate ethics and ethics in a more general sense,” says the Executive Director of NBIM, Knut N. Kjær.

He continued: “Henrik Syse is a highly competent person with expertise in ethics and a talent for innovation. I am very pleased that he has agreed to head this group in its initial phase while we are devising our strategy for the exercise of ownership rights.”

“I am taking up this post with a sense of keen anticipation,” says Henrik Syse. “I am primarily an ethicist and philosopher, rather than an economist or financial analyst, but I will be working in an environment with enormous expertise in the economics field, and at the same time be allowed to be myself. The whole point is to provide new input and different approaches to the Bank’s investment management,” he says. “My task will be to help set the agenda and get off to a good start.”

A further three experts have been appointed to this group: Ola Peter Krohn Gjessing from Reuter’s, Kai Dramer, who has worked in the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration and the Research Council of Norway, and Alexander Cappelen, who is director of the Centre for Ethics and Economy at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH).